reach high! high! higher!
by leviadrache
Summary: Leo isn't alone. There's someone lifting him up, high enough to reach the stars.


Ten years old Leo was used to sleeping outside outside. Running away from one orphanage, waiting for someone to pick him up and bring him to the next one, he often found himself sleeping under the sky. It's why he preferred to sleep in parks. Locked rooms were nothing he enjoyed staying in, but wide and open places were nice. He felt smaller there.

Sometimes he was exhausted enough to fall asleep right away, but those nights tended to be an exception. A nice one though. Dreamless and restful sleep was what he dreamt of most other nights. Which was a bad pun, he knew, but he couldn't help it. He hasn't talked to anyone else for so long the jokes in his head kept getting worse and worse. Sure, he was no person that needed others around him all the time. He wouldn't keep leaving all the friends he made if he was. But from time to time it was nice to be not alone.

This time he almost regretted running away. Just after he finally found an orphanage where he meant to stay for longer than usual, one with okay food and okay people, he got told there was a family that wants to adopt him. Almost regretted. He still didn't plan to settle down and live a happy normal life.

He didn't want to. So he ran away. As easy as that.

Seriously. The day he found out there was a family that wanted to adopt him, he almost set the table on which he and some other kids were playing a board game on fire. No one wanted a boy who sets everything on fire just because he got a little freaked out or nervous.

But here he was, couldn't sleep, his eyes closed, fingers twisting the grass beneath them, ears listening to the sounds surrounding him. His mind ran like an engine, thoughts shooting through his head. The exhausted part of him wanted nothing more than a pizza and soda while a small childish part wanted to listen to the bedtime stories his mother told him.

There was another part of him he couldn't quite describe, but as he looked at the stars above him, something inside him longed after them. Light sleep caught him after a while, but it kept getting interrupted by phases of consciousness. The type where you couldn't tell what was a dream, what were your thoughts and what happened in reality.

So at some point there was someone laying on the grass next to him, someone with distant blue eyes and really warm face. A blond boy who held his head like an adult and spoke like one of Leo's best friends. Though it was really weird. In his memories, the boy didn't have a voice or a face, just shimmering blond hair that looked like it tried to be a rival to the stars above them. Like. Sure. Leo probably wouldn't word it in such an embarrassing way, but he couldn't get that image out of his mind.

So he asked. "Have you ever been there?" Pointed at the sky.

The blond laughed, a sound as clear as the sky above them. And yeah. Leo's laughter joined soon, trying to make it seem like a joke. Something like, _sorry, I didn't mean to make this awkward, please don't hate me, at least I'm funny, right?_

But the other boy kept laughing more and shook his head as if he could hear Leo's thoughts. Then. "Do you want to?"

He stretched his hand out towards Leo who was too baffled and confused to do anything but stare. The hand seemed to be glowing as well, like everything about this boy. Leo started to realize that it wasn't as much like the stars as he thought earlier. Warm and pretty, yes, but not as natural. More like the sparks you see when you put a plate with those small golden lines into the microwave. The sparks when two wires connect.

Leo laughed louder. "That's impossible. _You_ must be joking."

The boy firmly shook his head. Again. "Do you want to?" Although Leo remembers that the boy didn't have a voice or a face, at this part, he swears there was something blue like a reflection of the sky. A second passed and it left.

A nod.

Silence followed. It took Leo a moment to slowly reach out for the hand offered to him, but when they touched, it felt warm.

* * *

 _Sleep claimed him. The type where it's hard to tell what was a dream and what wasn't._

But when sun rays hit Leo's face and he woke from his sleep, he could swear his clothes were moist. Not exactly wet, but moist like from some kind of steam.


End file.
